HashFast announces specs for new ASIC: 400GH/s

[rizzman]

What a bunch of nonsense.  You don't know how to figure out what BTC was valued at when you purchased the machine?  IMO the more payment options, the better.

I am going to get on my soapbox for a sec... so prepare for a bit of suds  

Hopefully they price it in BTC rather than some fiat denominated BTC.

First we are trying to promote an economy of buying things with BTC.  This does put some risk on the manufacturer, but if we want the BTC economy to successful, we all need to take some risks.  Miners are not averse to risks so we participate in pre-buys.

Machines that produce BTC should also be denominated in BTC.  People who buy miners are buying to make more BTC. If the machine doesn't make more BTC than it costs... then it is clearly a bad investment. That is, the purchaser could have just purchased BTC outright and been ahead.

Pricing in USD or EUR or whatever, muddies the water on the calculation of ROI, but ultimately for miners, the calculation is easy in BTC:
 (BTC in) > (BTC out) == bad deal, should have just bought BTC and held it
 (BTC in) < (BTC out) == good deal, buy buy buy

From a practical perspective, if folks are worried about trying to get BTC lined up before sales become available, Hashfast can communicate before hand what the pricing will be by a week or so.  Then buyers can get their ducks in a row.  Avalon Batch 3 gave less than a day which prevented some from being able to participate in the sale.

+1 - The whole idea of accepting ONLY BTC is rediculous. The ONLY way BTC is going to become recognized as something other than a novelty / illicit currency is to get people to see it as at-least on-par with their local paper currency on a large scale. Once the currency is developed, and people start to realize the value, THEN this is possible, until then keep dreaming... PCB's, chips, etc are bought with USD/EURO/ETC not BTC... not yet atleast....

As for pegging the price to BTC it would put way too much volatility into the sale for both sides - take 5 minutes and think about, customers purchases a device for say $2000 BTC adjusted in USD. Company spends 2 million taping out a chip, purchasing said chips with funds, then that customer backs out of the deal 3 weeks and 25% drop later in BTC value. Are you going to screw the customer out of $500? or are you going to eat the cost yourself? are you simply going to risk bring labeled as vaporware by stating that you are not accepting refunds??

 You see the problem with this now?... Took less than 5 minutes.

[1714047149]

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[1714047149]

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[marketalchemy]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

[HashFast]

Is Bob Smith really his name ?! The only thing that would be a bigger red flag is if he signed his name John Doe...

Yes it really is... Not sure what else I can do to prove that? 
John

[bobboooiie]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Time machine

[HashFast]

Is Bob Smith really his name ?! The only thing that would be a bigger red flag is if he signed his name John Doe...

Yes it really is... Not sure what else I can do to prove that? 
John

I guess I can post this: 

http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpsmith

[Loredo]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Why does everybody always want to overclock everything?  It's like putting bigger tires on the SUV, and then, as soon as the thing is tilted 5 degrees, it rolls over. 

Engineers design chips with such things with thermal properties, chemical properties of materials, and communications between components in mind.  Take steroids, risk a heart attack.

[HashFast]

Is Bob Smith really his name ?! The only thing that would be a bigger red flag is if he signed his name John Doe...

My intern thinks this is a good idea... im not so sure  
I think the linkedin profile is better proof, LOL

John

[DPoS]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Why does everybody always want to overclock everything?  It's like putting bigger tires on the SUV, and then, as soon as the thing is tilted 5 degrees, it rolls over. 

Engineers design chips with such things with thermal properties, chemical properties of materials, and communications between components in mind.  Take steroids, risk a heart attack.

don't worry..  they'll drop it in a tub of mineral oil too!

[pikeadz]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Why does everybody always want to overclock everything?  It's like putting bigger tires on the SUV, and then, as soon as the thing is tilted 5 degrees, it rolls over. 

Engineers design chips with such things with thermal properties, chemical properties of materials, and communications between components in mind.  Take steroids, risk a heart attack.

Because engineers design hardware to have a useful life as compared to other household appliances and consumer electronics.  In the bitcoin world, we don't plan on hashing with these things for more than a few years because they become obsolete so fast.  I doubt my AM block erupter blades will be hashing a useful amount of bitcoin a year from now.  Same with my Avalons but you can bump that time frame out to a year and a half, maybe 2 years if the bitcoin exchange rate appreciates enough.  So I will overclock the hell out of them to make a bigger return.

[initforthemoney]

Would be interested in pricing as well. Interesting concept but so far it's only that in my eyes.

[marketalchemy]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Time machine

Great.... then I will overclock.

[Loredo]

In the bitcoin world, we don't plan on hashing with these things for more than a few years because they become obsolete so fast.  I doubt my AM block erupter blades will be hashing a useful amount of bitcoin a year from now.  Same with my Avalons but you can bump that time frame out to a year and a half, maybe 2 years if the bitcoin exchange rate appreciates enough.  So I will overclock the hell out of them to make a bigger return.

I honestly often forget that the dominant strategy for most in bitcoins - and I'm not being snarky or sarcastic here - is Pump and Dump. 

Some, like AM, have to think of their hardware as an asset of their on going businesses.  Each unit will be a smaller piece of their overall business' hash rate, but the plan is that it should be running for a good while, or until the next generation retires those units.

You're right; if you only plan on being in the game until the network renders your current units irrelevant, than overclocking makes total sense.  Particularly in double-sha ASICs where the first two letters pretty much translate to "boat anchor" for anything other than bitcoin.  On GPU's, it was a benefit cost trade off.  As you imply, with your horizon, there's no trade off.  Punch it and hope they don't fry before you're done.

Week end.

[Loredo]

Is Bob Smith really his name ?! The only thing that would be a bigger red flag is if he signed his name John Doe...

Are you implying that John Doe would be a complete fraud, not a real person?

Well, I'll have you know that my handle comes from my name LOREn DOe.  My father's name was John, and I'll fight anybody who claims Dad wasn't a Real Man.  So you back off.   

And, if you believe that, maybe you'll believe I've got a couple TH of BFL equipment hashing in my attic right now that I'll let you have for just 50 bucks a GB.  Log on to zombo dot com and leave a message if you're interested. 

[pikeadz]

Punch it and hope they don't fry before you're done.

As a side issue, there is a reason I religiously change the batteries in my smoke detectors every and have fire extinguishers on every level of my house.  I also inspect each miner several times a day for signs of heat or other damage.  I've seen too many pics of fried components on these forums and, as much as it is out of my hands, I take what precautions I can.

But yeah, most of us like to tinker and would overclock our toasters if we could.

[Xian01]

Is Bob Smith really his name ?! The only thing that would be a bigger red flag is if he signed his name John Doe...

Yes it really is... Not sure what else I can do to prove that? 
John

I guess I can post this: 
http://www.linkedin.com/in/robertpsmith

 Thanks for the clarification, and I suppose I should sheepishly apologize for throwing up the red flag.

 Good luck with your venture. Would love to have the opportunity to own one of your 400gH/s monsters once they are realized.

[jspielberg]

What a bunch of nonsense.  You don't know how to figure out what BTC was valued at when you purchased the machine?  IMO the more payment options, the better.

I am going to get on my soapbox for a sec... so prepare for a bit of suds  

Hopefully they price it in BTC rather than some fiat denominated BTC.

First we are trying to promote an economy of buying things with BTC.  This does put some risk on the manufacturer, but if we want the BTC economy to successful, we all need to take some risks.  Miners are not averse to risks so we participate in pre-buys.

Machines that produce BTC should also be denominated in BTC.  People who buy miners are buying to make more BTC. If the machine doesn't make more BTC than it costs... then it is clearly a bad investment. That is, the purchaser could have just purchased BTC outright and been ahead.

Pricing in USD or EUR or whatever, muddies the water on the calculation of ROI, but ultimately for miners, the calculation is easy in BTC:
 (BTC in) > (BTC out) == bad deal, should have just bought BTC and held it
 (BTC in) < (BTC out) == good deal, buy buy buy

From a practical perspective, if folks are worried about trying to get BTC lined up before sales become available, Hashfast can communicate before hand what the pricing will be by a week or so.  Then buyers can get their ducks in a row.  Avalon Batch 3 gave less than a day which prevented some from being able to participate in the sale.

+1 - The whole idea of accepting ONLY BTC is rediculous. The ONLY way BTC is going to become recognized as something other than a novelty / illicit currency is to get people to see it as at-least on-par with their local paper currency on a large scale. Once the currency is developed, and people start to realize the value, THEN this is possible, until then keep dreaming... PCB's, chips, etc are bought with USD/EURO/ETC not BTC... not yet atleast....

As for pegging the price to BTC it would put way too much volatility into the sale for both sides - take 5 minutes and think about, customers purchases a device for say $2000 BTC adjusted in USD. Company spends 2 million taping out a chip, purchasing said chips with funds, then that customer backs out of the deal 3 weeks and 25% drop later in BTC value. Are you going to screw the customer out of $500? or are you going to eat the cost yourself? are you simply going to risk bring labeled as vaporware by stating that you are not accepting refunds??

 You see the problem with this now?... Took less than 5 minutes.

I just checked the state of the exchanges and it isn't pretty getting money in to buy BTC isn't that difficult, but it seems BTC isn't really ready.
/sadface  I rescind my request for pricing in BTC...

However... note that all experienced miners will be pricing your hardware in terms of BTC in their evaluation of your product.
This may seem obvious, but the miner's goal is more BTC.  If the price doesn't indicate a likelihood of a positive ROI (in BTC), you won't get experienced miners as customers (and will likely be vocal about it). 

For some recent product pricing history issues, see:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=258926.0

[Luckybit]

So this would be John Skrodenis of Hashfast;

www.linkedin.com/in/johnskrodenis

Yes - that's John.

And this is you; www.linkedin.com/in/simonresume

I've previously read your bettering Bitcoin article published in The Finacial Cryptography Journal with Stanford's Robotics. If other's here would read it, it would certainly raise the level of aptitude within this forum.

In any case, looking forward to seeing more of what you're planning. You certainly have the background for this...

Good luck.

I agree, and that's why it was an easy decision to work for him when he called.
here are some more links regarding Simon:

Simon’s paper:  http://crypto.stanford.edu/~xb/fc12/bitcoin.pdf    which is the second reference here btw:   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitcoin#References
Simon Barber’s Profile at PARC:  http://www.parc.com/about/people/2220/simon-barber.html

Cheers,
John

Nice paper Simon.

I have some critiques and commentary for you.

Hoarding: a moral hazard? Bitcoins much more than any other currency in existence
derive their value from the presence of a live, dynamic infrastructure loosely constituted
by the network of verifiers participating in block creation. Because of their appreciation
potential, bitcoins will tend to be saved rather than spent. As hoarded bitcoins vanish
from circulation, transaction volume will dwindle and block creation will become less
profitable (fewer fees to collect). If circulation drops too much, it can precipitate a loss
of interest in the system, resulting in “bit rot” and verifier dearth, until such point that
the system has become too weak to heal and defend itself. Of particular concern is an
unavoidable large-scale fraud that we describe in the next section, and whose aftermath
includes sudden loss of confidence, collapse of value, and repudiation.
Towards decentralized organic inflation. An antidote to the preceding predicament
could take the form of a Bitcoin-like electronic currency with a decentralized inflationary feedback built-in, that could control the global minting rate based, e.g., on transaction volume statistics. While we leave the devising of monetary parameters for such an
“organically inflationary” currency as an open problem, we show next how deflationary
expectations negatively impact the long-term structural security of the Bitcoin system.

In my opinion Bitcoin being deflationary does not automatically lead to it being a moral hazard. I think it's a possibility but it's not the result of the cap or it being deflationary. I don't consider it moral hazard because the early adopters are also the ones taking the biggest risks if government decides to crack down. In order to actually defend something like Bitcoin from the established players within the industry who would seek to politically and socially destroy it (by claiming all Bitcoiners are child pornographers, druggies, terrorists, etc), there must be deflation which rewards people for holding Bitcoin. This makes Bitcoin sticky, and only by making it sticky can it defeat increasing social stigma.

If enough people get rich because they saved Bitcoins, those people will have stories to tell which wont involve them being a child pornographer, terrorist, drug dealer (or user). Those stories are critical for the success of any currency. Just as the US dollar relied on the story of the American dream where anyone could get rich if they just work hard, only with Bitcoin it's currently true while with the dollar at this point it's a blatant lie.

I do agree with you on the idea of organic inflation but I don't think we will need that for many years. Netcoin intends to do what you're talking about by building a democratic mechanism into the design. These mechanisms can allow for stakeholders to eventually vote on the inflation rate.

Please have take a look at Netcoin http://www.netcoin.io/wiki/Netcoin:Community_Portal
and if you have time give a review of some of the proposed features, in particular the features I proposed:

Netcoin Community-Oriented Decentralized Social Organization Supported by Blockchain

Coercion resistant decentralized remote electronic voting mechanism for Netcoin Community-Oriented Decentralized Social Organization

Netcoin thread is here https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=169204.0

[Plazma]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Time machine

Great.... then I will overclock.

I overclocked them and came back to say its working.

[J35st3r]

What can you get out of this if you overclock it?

Time machine

Great.... then I will overclock.

I overclocked them and came back to say its working.

Primer the time travel movie for geeks 

[jmaccoin]

So I googled fasthash. I am pretty sure I can handle that. Seems there is some water/ice cooling. But a drill for the power supply?

There was no talk of gigahashes at all, it was measured in grams?!?

Also, there was no talk of nanometers, it was all in microns. There was something about a 220, right down to 20 microns in one process?

And where do you input your wallet address? Then there was talk of a press?

This is going to knock bitcoin mining on its ass.